Summary
A crumbling Virginia plantation becomes the stage for a post-bellum morality play: Marse Covington Halliday, last knight of a dying order, clings to the tatters of antebellum pride while his chattel-turned-shadow Dan refuses manumission, binding himself to the master who once owned his skin. Halliday’s daughter Martha, luminous with new-century yearning, loves Walter Lewis, a Union lawyer whose very Northern vowels taste of treason to her father’s ears. Into this slow-motion shipwreck sails Jim Daly, carpet-bagger-cum-creditor, brandishing the mortgage to Halliday House like a death warrant. Daly covets Martha, conspires with river-rat gambler Edward Bantree, and rigs a midnight race that dooms Covington’s obsidian mare Bess and every last acre of ancestral dust. Penniless, the defeated trio—master, maiden, and faithful retainer—flee to Manhattan’s gas-lit gorges where charity soup is ladled beside Irish tenements; yet even here the past tracks them like bloodhounds. Dan, now Edward’s groom, unearths the rigged-race confession; Walter, defending Edward for Jim’s murder, barters legal genius for the deed to Halliday House. In the film’s final, almost unbearable tableau, the ruined patriarch returns home, kisses the threshold, and with trembling relic-hand bestows his daughter upon the enemy—an act of surrender so complete it feels like grace.
Synopsis
Proud Confederate Captain Covington Halliday refuses to allow his daughter Martha to marry Northern lawyer Walter Lewis. As a boy, Covington was given an African American servant named Dan, who has always called him "Marse Covington." After the Civil War, Dan refused his freedom and stood by Covington, sharing his misfortunes. Jim Daly, who holds the mortgage on Halliday House, also wants to marry Martha, so he schemes with gambler Edward Bantree to fix a race in which Covington has wagered all his property on his beloved horse, Bess. Although Bess loses, Martha refuses to marry Jim to reclaim her family home. She moves to New York City with her father and Dan, but their savings are soon exhausted and Covington is forced to stand in bread lines. After Dan goes to work for Edward, he learns about the plot to fix the race. He tells Walter, who is later hired to defend Edward for Jim's murder. In lieu of cash, Walter demands the Halliday House deed as payment. Covington returns to his home with Dan, and gives Walter his blessing to marry Martha.
Review Excerpt
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The first time we see Marse Covington Halliday he is framed in chiaroscuro against the fluted columns of Halliday House, moonlight slicing his cheek like a dueling scar. It is 1867 yet he wears the butternut coat of a Confederate captain as though the war ended yesterday and victory still imaginable. Director Paul Dallzell lets the camera linger until the fabric itself seems to exhale mildew and regret. This is not nostalgia; it is embalming.
Louise Huff’s Martha, all petticoat and phosphores..."
